Excess Baggage
by ToBetasered
Summary: The Traveling Store makes an appearance in Diagon Alley
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer, the author makes no claim to Harry Potter or Discworld.**

**Excess Baggage**

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The doorbell chimed as the man passed through the store's front entrance. He was going on a trip to a distant place and desired one of the items for sale in the store he had entered. His intended purchase was driven more out of novelty than need so he hadn't fully assessed the contents on display until he had fully stepped inside.

As a result, at first he thought that he had entered Borgin and Burkes. There was a fist of glory and a sealed crystal vial of Peruvian darkness powder on one of the over-stuffed shelves to his right, it brought back memories! But a glance at the show window and a deliberate look about settled his mind.

The window read 'E R O T S ~ G N I L E V A R T' in purple, cursive lettering and one of the items on display was a quaint wooden trunk that he wanted. He supposed that it was a bit of a general store as well, since; in addition to boxes upon boxes of aged soap, towel-cloths and piles of dusty folded tents, there were overflowing stacks of tooth-paste, tooth brushes, tooth-floss, and necklaces made from actual _teeth_. There were hour-glasses that looked suspiciously like time-turners, stuffed animals, a bowl of shoe-laces and many other items stacked against the walls or hanging from the ceiling.

As he looked around a large crystal ball lowered from the ceiling like from something out of a disco. He supposed that it was some kind of dark detector as a single red eye lit up and began glaring at him. He resolved to keep his hands to himself and avoid touching any of the items without the store manager's approval (lest he set off a sneakoscope, which was annoying, or was subjected to a probity probe, which always left him feeling violated).

As the store was rather empty for this time of the day in Diagon Alley he hadn't needed to wait overlong before the storekeeper, a short, stout man with grayish skin and overlarge teeth (for smiling with) approached him.

"Ah, a customer, and just before lunch too, you've come at an excellent time." The man said with a grin "What's your poison…or antidote? Can I interest you in a fine selection of bathing salts? Oh, a wizard, then perhaps you'd like to invest in a foe-glass…but no…" At this the shopkeeper gave the young man a knowing smile. "You look rather young; perhaps I can interest you in purchasing a nice billy-club, rarely used, straight from the Ankh-Morpork City Watch or would you like a genuine Assassin's Guild dagger, complete with an auto-stabbing function thrown in free of charge, hmmm?" The man smiled his too-wide smile.

The customer, a wizard, ran a hand through his unruly, dark hair as he puzzled out the salesman's pitch. Finally he answered. "I'm going on a trip and would like to purchase that luggage by the window." He gestured to the item that was chained to the floor.

The salesman looked briefly conflicted, one part terrified, two parts relieved. "T-t-that!" he stuttered loudly as a few more customers entered the store.

Under the wizard's suspicious gaze, the shopkeeper seemed to steel himself and recovered his dropped smile. "O-oh, that old thing!" The little gray man said jovially, with a nervous and slightly hysterical laugh. The customer watched with bemusement as the other man tried to carefully sidle up to the wooden trunk without seeming to do so (his eyes, which never left the luggage, and never stopped measuring the length of the chain attaching it to the floor, gave him away).

The wizard, having decided that there was something wrong with his intended purchase, decided to test the waters. "It's used then?" He asked innocently, as he walked right up to it and stroked the wood, feeling the warm grain and surreptitiously casting a dark detection spell.

"I don't recognize the wood." He said, waiting for the results. The wood felt _strangely warm_, like living flesh, but wood.

"I-its made from sapient pearwood." The man supplied.

It came up negative for curses to his enhanced vision but the reaction of the shopkeeper when he had touched the trunk made him certain that something was up. The look of resigned dread didn't make sense otherwise. The stunned disbelief on the store-owners face prompted him to inquire further about the matter.

"Is something wrong?" he said.

At first the man denied that such was the case, but under his customer's piercing glare he finally relented. "It's a little odd." He admitted.

At that moment, outside the store window, a bickering couple walked by. The man's nose was situated between his eyebrows and the woman's hair looked like rainbow-colored candy-floss. Behind them, the couple's child followed, scowling mutinously as she was trussed to a low-flying, miniature broom by a snarl of pink cords held firmly in her father's hand like a leash.

"…Odd?" The man asked.

Suddenly the Luggage shivered

_Sapient!_

The dark-haired wizard jerked his hand backward in alarm as the storekeeper jumped, startled, and fell onto his arse.

The men watched; one in amazement, one in horror, as hundreds of little feet popped put of the bottom of the Luggage and moved with incredible precision, turning it about on the spot. The chain came taut and held, causing the storekeeper to sigh.

"You said sapient, wise, intelligent…it is self-aware?" The man asked accusingly.

The shopkeeper kept his eyes firmly on the lid of the Luggage which seemed to be glaring at him (though it didn't actually have eyes) and menacingly flexing against the chain wrapped around it, causing the links to make a rather terrifying sound (the sound of the links failing, which was terrifying).

"Not as such…" The man stammered, "No more than at the level of a dog- a very, very intelligent dog." He hastily amended as the Luggage tried to lunge at him.

The commotion seemed to be drawing out the store's few customers who gawked at the display. The two men ignored the bystanders (one out of habit, the other out of self-preservation).

"You see it's slightly temperamental," The shopkeeper explained trying to salvage the deal.

Whatever the young wizard was going to say in answer didn't get said, as out from behind a rack of old Cosmo magazines, a dark robed wizard, one of the customers who had entered while the two were talking, leapt out brandishing a wand.

"Die! Potter!" The man screamed between maniacal cackles. "Avada-"

What ever _he_ was going to say next didn't get said. For the dark-haired man, Potter, had twitched a hand and from it a bolt of blue lightning had flashed out, it was already coursing its way on though the assassin's body before the '-ter' of the man's triumphal gloating (a violation of evil overlord rules nos. 6, 16 and 20) had finished.

It would have ended there in a rather anticlimactic fashion, with the twitching man's accomplice's tame surrender, save for what happened next…

There was a rending of metal, the shopkeeper (who _still_ hadn't looked away from the Luggage) screamed…

And the Luggage, it _moved_…

There was a –Snap-, -Snap-, as the Luggage's cover opened and closed. The shopkeeper cringed and shut his eyes but the green eyed wizard, Harry Potter watched intently.

There was a rather… unpleasant moment, followed by the final closure of the Luggage and some muffled screams that were abruptly silenced. The people in the store watched agape as the Luggage shuffled about smugly, settled on its base and opened its lid to give a generous burp. The shopkeeper and the wizard caught a glimpse of a large red tongue and rows and rows of teeth (like a shark) each the size of a square trowel.

"I'll take it." Harry said decisively.

"…" The shopkeeper stared at him disbelievingly.

Noticing the look caused the wizard to smile, and with ample caution (debatable), he made his way over to the sated-looking Luggage.

"My wife just loves these kinds of things." He said, "And besides." Leaning over warily (it just ate someone!), he reached behind the Luggage's lid and stroked the wood right along the big brass hinges.

The Luggage shuddered in ecstasy and became quiescent, the lid flopped open, revealing stacks of washed, ironed and neatly folded clothes with a dish of cucumber sandwiches resting upon them.

"Besides," The wizard cheerily said taking a bite of cucumber on rye, "It reminds me of my school days..."

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**AN: I'm rather busy, just posting an older one-shot.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Excess Baggage: The Circle of Life**

**Evolution**

**xx**

Long ago, a span of time measured in millions of solar cycles, four powerful space-faring races encountered each other amid a certain cluster of galaxies. They were known as the Nox, the Ancients; the Asgard and the Furlings. Though initially disparate in their in their respective cultures, languages and beliefs, these four species over the course of several millennia eventually found common ground.

Upon a planet, Heliopolis, a great city was built where these four races met. They gathered there to share their experiences, debate matters of mutual interest and to resolve potential conflicts peaceably. For hundreds of thousands of years the great meeting place that they had built stood as tall and strong as the Alliance of Four. The races prospered from the exchange of ideas. They learnt to view problems from new perspectives by coming to know the beliefs and experiences of others. In time the alliance grew to surpass anything that the races could have ever achieved individually.

Then, suddenly, the Ancients withdrew from the alliance and disappeared. The remaining allies remained amicable but eventually the alliance fractured and each member went their own way.

Then, thousands of years later, the Goa'uld rose into prominence. Using their the Unas, a species native to their world as unwilling hosts, these parasitic beings expanded their territories by incorporating the technological advancements developed by other species, most particularly the technology of the Ancients. Winning victory upon victory through infiltration and guile; or the use of stolen technology and genocide, the Goa'uld Empire expanded. Things continued as such until this new race eventually ran afoul of the Asgard. The Asgard, recognizing the deceptive, oppressive and brutal nature of the Goa'uld and outraged at the barbarism perpetrated upon the inhabitants of a world under their protection declared war. At the same time they urged their former allies, the Nox and Furlings to renew their alliance to do battle against the Goa'uld.

The Nox, being a pacifistic people, refused. The Furlings, though realizing the danger of this new, aggressive species were too few in number, limited by population problems. However, the initially reluctant Furlings agreed to lend what little aid they could spare to the Asgard on the condition that their forces would be conserved by the use of limited punitive offenses against the Goa'uld.

For a time these battles continued as such. The Goa'uld in their teeming millions could in a single spawning replenish their numbers in less than a decade. Those that held hosts practiced ritual cannibalism, devouring infant symbiotes in order to remind them of the power that each adult now held and the ruthlessness needed to retain their positions. The Goa'uld within a short time would amass enough ships and soldiers to attack Asgard and Furling holdings, unswayed by the punitive assaults.

Each time the Goa'uld were driven off after battles that devastated entire worlds but each time the pressure on the dwindling Furling race increased with every being lost, leaving the Allied forces unable to move decisively against the regrouping Goa'uld. In the end of one of these exchanges, an Asgard Commander, Famnir was taken as a host by Ra who then retreated to Heliopolis in an attempt to decipher the secrets of the Alliance of Four.

By this time however, the Goa'uld forces had expanded in the direction of the Nox territories and protected reservations. After a merciless attack wiped out an entire species on one of these planetary reservations tended by the Nox, the normally peaceful beings agreed to lend their power toward putting an end to the Goa'uld threat.

The events that followed lead would change the course of history. A vast fleet of the three remaining allies descended upon the massed forces of the System Lords and their Supreme Leader Ra. The attack occurred at the Heliopolis system, the ancient meeting place of the Alliance and the throne world of Ra's rule over the Goa'uld. It was a star system heavily guarded by thousands of Ha'tak, millions of fighters, vast terrestrial armies and powerful defense satellites. The seat of Ra's power, Heliopolis boasted the greatest concentration of forces that the Goa'uld had ever assembled.

The Alliance intended to take back Heliopolis from the Goa'uld and in that one act humble the aggressive race.

Every last Ha'tak was destroyed, billions died without even slowing the Allies' inexorable advance upon the planet ignoring weapons fire from the sattelite installations. Not even suicide charges worked as first generation Ha'tak were dematerialized by early Asgard beaming technology, reduced to their component atoms and dispersed into space. Flights of udajeet ceased to exist before the Nox, their subatomic bonds neutralized and drifting apart from each other and out of phase with normal space.

The Furlings in their small battlecruisers, only slightly larger than a Tel'tak, blinked from place to place using their mysterious quantum fold technology to devastating effect. Here and there on the battlefield Goa'uld destroyer analogues would bunch together for the protection of their overlapping defenses. Then, a Furling battlecruiser would appear in the center of a formation in a flash of Cherenkov radiation with a rippling spatial distortion of a closing wormhole.

One, two, three goa'uld vessels would be cut apart by brilliant purple beams of super-accelerated energetic matter, compressed by gravimetric fields into femtometer-thick ribbons of destruction, slicing effortlessly through shields and armor. Before the beleaguered ships could re-orient for an attack, the battlecruiser would again vanish, leaving in its place a mine that unleashed terrible gravitational eddies as it ripped the surviving vessels to shreds and compacted the remains into cherry-red lumps of glowing metal.

The System Lord Yu, then an innovative young leader among the goa'uld, would forever remember that mind-numbing fear and the sheer terror of death that swept over those that sought to challenge the might of the true Titans of the Stars. Millions died without ever realizing the danger that they were in, millions more perished screaming in shameless hysteria generated by the knowledge of their inevitable demise. Yu survived by being one of the first to flee, a shame that would stay with him for the rest of his existence. He would never overtly claim to be a god, the words dying in the Jade Emperor's throat at the remembered horror of that time…

The Alliance would descend upon Heliopolis using their combined mastery of quantum manifold, phase-shift and gravitic technologies to erase all traces of Goa'uld presence from the planet, leaving no structure standing save for The Alliance's ancient meeting place. But this victory would also be the bitterest defeat. The weapon deployed by the Alliance disastrously altered the stability of the planet's orbit, setting it in a degrading orbit around the system's star.

Unable to undo their error without the aid of the Ancients, the Nox retreated inward seeking to avoid all war, all contact with aggressive species. The Furlings, dwindling and disheartened, retreated into hidden enclaves offering sanctuary to those who would go with them. The Asgard, alone, fought on, forming and enforcing a Protected Planets Treaty with the goa'uld.

Somewhere in Ancient Egypt, an alien being, the Asgard Famnir and something else, stumbled out of the Gateway to the Heavens, a curious, frightened human child would approach the dying Unas not knowing the fate he would bring upon his people…

xx

The IOA would never truly understand the relationship between ELAW and the Nox. The Nox were pacifists and ELAW could, at best, be described as ultra-violent pacifists who exercised ultra-pacifistic violence against their enemies. In layman's terms, a philosophy that revolved around passive-aggression taken a ridiculous extent and burly, hairy, one-eyed men named 'Snake' or steely-voiced women with liquid nitrogen for blood who used the phrases, 'Peace of the grave' and 'Cycle the main cannon' entirely too often when saying hello and goodbye, (usually within a single breath).

Oficially, ELAW did not possess any warships. The 'lightly armed' Annihilation-class 'ranged exploration scout-ship' and the Genocide-class, 'passively defended', 'diplomatic carrier' were just, as was often maintained, unfortunately named by someone with an unhealthy love of quotation marks.

A Welcygre-class 'pleasure yacht' had once been observed defending itself from a pirate fleet of 12 Apophis upgraded Ha'tak. The vessel had been observed by TFSF Intelligence, utilizing a system that absorbed, amplified, magnified and deflected incoming weapon's fire…back at its aggressors. The pirates had not survived the encounter.

On a separate occasion an unfortunate malfunction aboard a test-type TFSF Battlecruiser had caused the ship's warboard to identify an ELAW mining vessel as an enemy. Even after sustaining multiple nuclear strikes and two full volleys from an Asgard beam weapon, the mining vessel's captain had been gracious enough to tow the crippled battlecruiser back to a commercial Anchorage. No mention was ever made of the company of SpecOps soldiers that had tried to board the ELAW ship or of the battlecruiser's port cargo bay that had been converted into a laboratory equipped to disassemble and study advanced technologies.

The conversation between the ELAW Director of Mediations and the Terran Federation Ambassador ended several military and political careers due to 'personal family issues'.

In the end the relationship between the Nox and ELAW stemmed from several seemingly mundane issues that had absolutely nothing to do with the non-existent technology trades that the TFSF so feared were occurring between the two advanced societies.

To put it simply, the Nox and ELAW 'got along' because ELAW asked nothing of the Nox but friendship and the Nox were deeply interested a certain ELAW conservation program.

The ELAW _Dragon_ conservation program…

xx

Evolution

On a certain planet, very many millions or years ago, there existed a predator.

_The jungle cat crouched silently amid a grove of trees. The animal weighed more than a Terran tiger and sported mottled tawny-brown fur. The hunter was currently eyeing a vibrantly pink creature the size of a cow that had the torso of an armadillo, the legs of an elephant, the feet of an ape; the head of a rhinoceros with tiny purple ears and upon that head a single crumpled-looking horn._

_This particular jungle cat could have found less-dangerous prey than the herbivore before it, but its options were limited as it had been banished from its pride and was getting desperate and hungry enough to risk it's life for the chance at a good meal. Placid grey eyes watched silently as the animal moved within range… then, it leapt._

_Only to be snatched out of the air by a beast with alligator-like jaws that ripped at flesh. Blood flew as a long sinewy body curled sinuously about the grievously wounded animal. Leathery skin remained immune to the giant dew-claws that frantically scratched and scrabbled for a hold seeking to rend its attacker._

Predator became prey as the Chinese Fireball consumed its latest meal. The clearing was empty of any other creature save for a line of ape-like footprints that lead off into the trees.

Evolution

On a certain planet, millions of years ago, there once existed an excellent predator. Its species evolved to dominate the air, the mountains, plains and valleys. With senses of sight and smell beyond peer they hunted along rivers, through forests and over vast prairies.

But then, something happened.

Evolution…

Over time, in order to avoid such an awesome predator, prey animals began to evolve ever more complex means of hiding themselves from sight, smell and hearing of the predator. It was an evolutionary step that heavily influenced the development and social philosophy of the Nox. Dragons were eventually supplanted as the dominant species of their birth-world not through brawn but by the evolution of a devious mind devoted to finding solutions to avoid confrontations.

In time, climate change and a violent solar flare, lead to the devastation of the dragon's natural habitat, the Nox by then had become a vast space-faring empire and called upon aid from one of their allies, specifically the Ancients, in preserving several species from their homeworld in a number of planetary reserves.

The destruction of the only dragon preserve known to the Nox had been the catalyst that caused the normally peaceful race to go to war. The discovery that the once thought lost species still existed and that ELAW was trying to preserve them from extinction had contributed greatly to the now amicable state of relations between the Nox and ELAW.

The Crumple-horned Snorkack herd, pixie and fairy hives were just the icing on the cake.

And that was how, in spite of Harry's best efforts to the contrary, Elysium was turned into a planetary zoo infested with many strange and wondrous creatures.

xx

Harry was watching the antics of the strange and wondrous creature before him. It was called a preening nobleman and he would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so damned annoying.

Several knights, their families, retainers and a populace of sufficient genetic diversity had been dispersed by Merlin throughout the Stargate Network. Each location was hidden by a copy of Merlin's Mantle and given the means and opportunity to eventually develop into a power capable of standing against the threats that Moros Myr foresaw in the future. Some of these medieval societies, in spite of Merlin's best efforts devolved into violent savagery, either annihilating themselves or forgetting their purpose entirely.

On a few worlds, either by accident or incaution, the mantles protecting them either ceased to function or were destroyed. A few of these societies survived but many were taken by the goa'uld. Seven worlds survived to remember their shared history, basing their entire society upon the promise of a wizard and the coming of the once and future King. These worlds evolved, developed in interesting ways, connected to each other by a private Stargate network protected by the Merlin's Mantle. The Seven Duchies became the central authority that ruled in the place of their prophesied King.

For several generations young girls of noble birth had been raised until their twenty-first birthday with the expectation that should the King show himself, one of them would be his bride. The Duchy that accomplished such a feat would hold a connection to the royal line and rule over all others.

There was just one snag.

Harry cast a last aggravated look over at his wife Luna Potter, 'King' of the Seven Duchies, wielder of the Excalibur Orbital Defense Grid and Drone production plant that protected her people a collection of magisters and mundane technomancers that composed this truly unique society.

Oh, the Dukes, they had wailed.

They had tried to deny it, but the forces of Anubis had been closing in on the Duchy of One, Tristran and the doomed planet's mantle had ceased functioning, Then Luna had gone and grabbed the holographic sword, pulling it out of the stone again before a crowd of thousands.

Unable to deny their people's savior the throne, and unwilling to antagonize someone controlling a telepathic WMD, the Dukes had reoriented their plans from denying Luna to seducing her, which meant Harry had to go. Several murder attempts later and the deconstruction of one noble family, Harry had been forced into a compromise. On the seventh month of every year, for the first seven years of Luna's reign as King, King's consort Harry, a title that the nobles derisively stressed the 'K' as often as possible, barring duty, was required to fight fourteen challengers for Luna's hand in marriage.

There were very nearly a lot of dead nobles after that stipulation. Luna had accepted with aplomb on the condition that several measures meant to limit the powers of the nobles and provide opportunities to the lower social classes would be emplaced after every victory.

The Magisters and their quasi-mystical arts, a combination of magic and prancing around babbling nonsense, had as the highest social class jostled for their sons, and themselves to be numbered among the fourteen each year. Harry's popularity had soared after gaining victory after victory with swift, silent incantations and his Cimmerian taught sword-style. That had spawned problems of its own when Magister clans began sending their daughters into his bedroom with the intention of acquiring new blood.

Luna was understanding of his situation, if only a bit too understanding actually, and enthusiastic in confirming that he would remember devote sufficient energy to satisfying her.

Sometimes having a 'Liberated' wife gave him a headache.

The efforts that were put into seducing him were almost as comical in their extent as the efforts that went into killing him. At one time an assassin that had snuck into his room had been confused by a potential suitor as a rival, resulting in a pitched three way battle between the woman that wanted to rape him, the woman that wanted to kill him and Harry.

That had stopped once Harry allowed Aum to become involved. The sentient, transcendental intelligence was somewhat possessive of Harry and had quickly developed a habit of beaming uninvited trespassers into his room, including Luna, several miles offshore. The same courtesy had been extended to anyone her brain scans indicated had the intention of causing him harm within a twelve kilometer radius.

Several dukes had decided to go on sabbaticals since then to deal with sudden bouts of pneumonia.

The only time that Aum was not permitted by Harry to interfere was during these farcical matches. Fortunately this was the Seventh and final year that challengers would be entertained.

xx

A nervous squire handed Harry his Q-blade. A mergence of technological and metaphysical sciences, it was a traditional weapon of the Duchies. Looking like an exotic cross between a bastard sword and a scimitar with an extra-long, curved and notched handle, the weapon could be transformed into an Alteran energy rifle or in blade form surrounded by a tightly compressed sheathe of plasma, constrained within a selectively permeable shield that gave it either an incredibly subtle edge or a paralyzing electrical discharge.

With some finesse and a lot of brute strength the weapon could be used to deflect blasts from a hand-held staff weapon though it took a lot of skill. It was an archaic weapon that the Dukes had insisted upon being used in the fights knowing that Harry would be unfamiliar with its heft and usage.

The first fourteen challengers had been the seven Dukes and their heirs, all of whom were magisters. With the rifle option deactivated as the terms of the duel demanded the magister had opted to use magical attacks. Fortunately for Harry, the simplest incantation that his opponent had, an evocation spell create a ball of fire, was ten seconds long and the man, one of the Dukes that had enjoyed calling Harry 'King's consort', seemed to expect that Harry would just stand there in awe as the guy prepared to torch him.

Harry silently and wandlessly transfigured the man's perspiration into kerosene, cast a flame-freezing charm and banished the burning man into a nearby lake, in that order. In the eighty-four matches that he had fought, twelve had been fought purely using blades. Harry's time among the Asgard Protected planets and on Earth had allowed him the opportunity to sample various philosophies of the martial and metaphysical arts and many of the societies that followed such philosophies often combined the mental and physical arts into one.

He'd only used the confundus, like, eighty-two times…

They were making him fight for his wife!

By now he was in the arena facing off against a nobleman by the name of Tartuent, a rather skilled swordsman and a general in the Duchy of Six terrestrial military. He was too skilled a swordsman for Harry to risk fighting him up close. The two had exchange the expected pleasantries and Harry returned to his corner inwardly scowling at the idea of having to fight for the right to call his wife, _his wife_ in a public spectacle.

He hoped Luna was proud of herself.

Bracing himself, and pressing a hand to the glowing jewel affixed to his front he thought.

"_**Loricatuus."**_

A smoky silver mist spread out of the jewel, and covered his body just as Tartuent's clothes began to convert into plate armor. A blue ring of light surrounded Harry's midsection and split into two rings that went up and down his body, encapsulating him in a soft white glow.

When it was over both men wore rune covered armor suits. General Tartuent's armor suit was Gothic in design and was covered in runes that reduced its weight and increased both the wearer's strength and durability. While Harry's armor was much more than enchanted sets of interlocking metal plates. Underneath the paper thin, trinium coated, flexible B-steel plates was an amorphous nano-mechanical viscous-solid crystal layer that had been created by Argard technology under the reality-altering effects of what the Magisters of the Duchies and the Wizards of Earth mislabeled, magic.

Immediately, General Tartuent dashed forward in a ground-eating stride and Harry was prepared to banish the man through a wall to get things going when a mental probe slammed into his occluded mind. The sudden two-front assault caused Harry to stagger as he barely blocked and parried Tartuent's attack. The mental assault waned as Harry fell on the defensive and waxed whenever he managed to put his opponent on his back foot. Finally he was knocked off balance and though his armor could have taken the blow Harry rolled out of the path of Tartuaent's blade at the last second, intent on avoiding accusations of foul play should the true abilities of his suit come to light.

Dazed, Harry staggered away, weaving unsteadily under what had to be the combined mental attack of at least thirty minds. He was dimly aware of the roaring crowd, as Tartuent spun his blade with a flourish. The warrior circled Harry like a predator as the other man staggered about as if weary.

In one lucid moment, Harry caught sight of Luna's face, pale with concern, and he sighed.

"_What's with that face?"_ He thought, _"Didn't you say that every thing would be fine."_

There was a shout and Tartuent lifted his Q-blade towards the stormy sky. Harry could only scoff in disgruntlement as the man supercharged the weapon's compression sheath with plasma, causing the blade to crackle with electricity. The skies flashed with lightning creating a positively charismatic scene. On the other hand Harry had collapsed, clutching his head, onto one knee with his blade buried point-first in the ground.

Looking at the other man's display the disgruntled husband could only think_. "Drama queen…"_

In a corner of Harry's mind, a plaintive, child-like voice spoke to him. _"They're cheating."_ His partner said, _"Can I help now?!"_

Harry's thought to her, _"You just be your charming self, love."_ He could virtually see her blush as she acknowledged his unspoken request.

To be truthful, ponderously obfuscating evocations aside; the Magisters of the Seven Duchies were centuries ahead of Earth's magical world. The rune applications and Meta-abilities applied to transportation, medicine, art, exploration, education and the mass production of cheaply available, high quality goods; it made him mourn the self-imposed isolation of earth's meta-human population. _"Would this be what they could have been?"_

Even with their Feudal mind-set, the Duchies had thrived. For the sake of all that could be accomplished by these people, by the colony in the Eden System composed of Tollan, Wizard and Non-magical settlers and by Harry's agents on Earth that were slowly, silently drawing the magical and non-magical worlds together. For them, he fought.

Tartuent seemed to have gotten bored of posturing and in a feat of metaphysically fueled athleticism, leapt unnaturally high into the air, descending upon Harry like a wrathful angel with his burning sword.

Harry might have tolerated people telling him that he wasn't good enough for his wife if it meant saving billions of lives. He would fight for them in spite of their scorn.

But…

"**SHE'S **_**MY**_** DAMN WIFE!!!"**

For her, he would not lose.

Drawing upon the well of power within him, that shone like a star with the very light of his soul, the soul of the Master of Death, the spirit that had given birth to the Sound and Light of Sentient Life, a reminder that death was not the end of the life that multiplied within him, reverberated within him, endlessly, ceaselessly…

Beyond his body, Tartuent's blade began to descend toward his foe, the chorus of minds pressing upon Harry's will felt of anticipatory triumph…

Harry began to ponder possibilities.

There are very real and practical limitations of 'magic' which don't exist within the technological devices designed to produce the same effects. For example, a wizard may transfigure an object but eventually the transfiguration will eventually fade and the details of the transfiguration are at best only general. Whereas with Asgard beaming technology Harry could create a gold bar of immeasurable purity that would never fade and was inscribed with faithfully created, detailed artwork. The limitation of the transfiguration rested solely with the capabilities of Human mind in comparison to an Asgard Computer Core.

Thus, Harry created Aum.

_The tendrils of mental energy were grasped firmly and without warning introduced to a consciousness that performed uncounted quintillions of computational tasks per femtosecond. It was the mental equivalent of sticking one's finger in an exposed electrical outlet._

_At the same time that Aum burned out the psychic abilities of fourty-six adult telepaths, the possibility of a lightning strike occurred to Harry..._

-Pzzzt!Crunk!-

The crowd grew silent was the smoke cleared, a few diagnosticians attempted to treat the segment of the crowd that had suddenly, inexplicably collapsed. All other eyes were on the smoldering body, immobile on the ground before the victor's feet. There was the tinkling of broken glass.

Setting a foot upon Tartuent's groaning body Harry swung his Q-blade over his shoulder like a baseball bat and called out in a voice tinged with aggravation and impatience.

"Next!"

**xx**

**AN: Another weekend bit, I've sorted out Will of the Future don't intend to continue it this week or next without a Beta-reader.**


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